keepsake
by pyrat-xo
Summary: Ikkaku always said that he had lived far longer than any self-respecting 11th Divsion soul reaper would, and that if he died, he'd do it fighting. Which he did.


_keepsake_

Madarame Ikkaku was dead.

It was a long time coming.

Ikkaku always said that he had lived far longer than any self-respecting 11th Divsion soul reaper would, and that if he died, he'd do it fighting. Which he did.

Yumichika was handling it; he handles death like he handles everything else.

Beautifully.

He had attended the wake and funeral (two very loud, very drunk, very 11th affairs), met with Renji and Iba and Captain Zaraki and Yachiru and had been promptly promoted to third-seat like he'd always wanted. He'd paid his last respects and cleaned up after he had finished trashing the 11th Division training quad, and then proceeded to shut himself into Ikkaku's room to start clearing out, for when he moved in.

Ikkaku kept his room incredibly clean. A single table, one futon, no pillows and one very thin blanket. Undecorated, barely furnished, fully unwelcome to anyone who has never dragged in their own pillow and blanket and settled onto the spare futon Ikkaku kept in his closet for nights when Iba or Renji passed out in his room. Or when Yumichika didn't quite feel like trekking all the way down the hall back to his room after they finished sitting in long, comfortable silences-- punctuated by occasional drinking.

All Yumichika had to do was shift the main futon into a corner of the room, fold the blanket and clean off the papers on Ikkaku's table (mostly old memos, some orders, the few reports he hadn't shuffled off to anyone lower-ranked). It figured that Ikkaku didn't spend a lot of time in his own room-- only when he was about to sleep or doing work, the latter of which he very rarely did.

He didn't have journals or trinkets, no accessories or favorite articles of clothing. When Ikkaku thought about dying, he thought to leave nothing of himself, and made damn sure that anything he left could be easily tossed out. After all, he hated nothing more than having to clean up some dumbass's room after they went and died, and having to sort through piles of maybe-was-precious, maybe-should-keep, useless, annoying nonessentials.

Yumichika felt, not for the first time, that if Ikkaku had been a more sentimental man, he'd at least have some sort of keepsake, something to remember his friend by. As it was, Yumichika had found a single sliver of Ikkaku's first sword, the remainder of a smallish jade pendant on a red string Ikkaku had briefly worn for luck (before it cracked in half) and a shiny, striped river rock Yachiru had given him, that he used as a paperweight, that she said reminded her of him, that he had accepted with a surprised sort of smile and then a grumble.

Nothing he could keep that wouldn't violate Ikkaku's sensibilities, were he still around to complain about it. Besides, none of it was wholly Ikkaku's, none of it uncolored by someone else. The sword Kenpachi had broken, the pendant some girl he had unwittingly rescued in the 70th North Rukongai District gave him, and the rock Yachiru said was shiny like him so Ikkaku should _definitely_ have it.

Yumichika left those where he had found them, and settled in front of the table to check over the paperwork Ikkaku had never gotten around to, quietly memorizing each stroke of Ikkaku's handwriting, calmly engraving the spicy, earthy scent of Ikkaku's room into his mind.

When he sensed Maki-Maki hovering anxiously outside the door, Yumichika airily waved him inside and prompted him to speak with a cheerful, happy sort of smile that terrified the lower-seated soul reaper even more than when their captain was hurling death threats. He very solemnly handed over a folded-up piece of paper, and then cleared out as fast as his rather slow shunpo could take him.

Yumichika turns the paper in his hands, reads the thin, quick, run-together brush-strokes that he's long since learned to recognize as his name in Ikkaku's decent, but incredibly lazy handwriting. A confession? Last words, final messages to his friends? Yumichika thinks he needs to read this slowly, thoroughly, in complete control of himself.

It looks like a letter, with _for Yumichika, if I die _scrawled on the front and he doesn't want to open it, to read the rest.

He does anyway, and it takes a moment to scan the white expanse of empty paper before panic sets in and his eyes dart to the top of the page and he finishes reading

_take care of yourself_

before he has a chance to remind himself to take it slow. Yumichika reads it again, scans the rest of the paper and flips it back over to the front, then goes back to read the message one more time.

He laughs as he folds the paper back along the seams Ikkaku had originally folded it, tucks it into a pocket inside his _gi_.

What had he been expecting?

Probably too much.

So much for handling it.

Take care of himself?

Of course, Yumichika thinks as he buries his face in his hands.

It would be sort of ugly, otherwise.


End file.
